INTRODUCTION

Ch. 19 marks a crucial moment
in the history of Israel, for it records their arrival at Mt.Sinai.

This
will be the scene of God formally extending an invitation to the tribes of Israel to be His covenant people.

It’s
at Sinai that God will give an extensive legal code to Moses; a code which
contains moral, civic, and ceremonial regulations.

It’s
at Sinai that the Ten Commandments are given and Moses receives the blueprints
for a special building that will mark the literal center of the nation.

Sinai also becomes the scene
of some of one of the worst failures of the children of Israel in their trip to Canaan,
as we’ll see.

Outline For Exodus

I.The Exodus • Chs. 1-13:16

II.The Journey to Sinai • Chs. 13:17-40:38

A.-E.

F.From Rephidim to
Sinai • 19

G.At Mt.Sinai • 20-40

CHAPTER 19

F.From Rephidim to
Sinai • 19

1.1-6
• God’s invitation to Israel to be His people

1 In the third month after the children of Israel had gone
out of the land of Egypt, on the same day, they came to the Wilderness
of Sinai. 2 For they had departed from Rephidim,
had come to the Wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. So Israel camped there before the mountain.

Israel’s calendar is based on their Exodus from Egypt.

The
first month is the month they left, on the 14th, which is the
Passover.

So
it has taken them 2 months to travel to Sinai. [map]

A handful of critics of the
scriptures say that there is no way between 2 & 3 million people could have
gone this far in this period of time.

But
historians have more than amply shown such criticism is totally ill-founded.

Keep
in mind that virtually all transportation at
this time was done on foot and people were accustomed to going great distances
in this way.

Also,
the Israelites had just been liberated from a harsh and oppressive lifestyle
which had toughened them
physically.It would not have been
difficult at all for the people to travel the distance from Egypt to Sinai in this period of time.

Another
factor to consider was that while they were nearly 3 million in number, they
were used to being ordered into work projects and would have followed Moses’
lead – at least at first, which is precisely what we see in these first
chapters of Exodus.

It
isn’t till a bit later that a few begin to question his leadership and balk at
following.

So now, in the 3rd
month, they arrive at the destination God had told Moses they would come to, as
a sign that He was indeed with them, guiding them, and would bring them into
the Land of Promise.

Exodus 3:12 - So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this
shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the
people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

This
was spoken by God to Moses as he stood before the burning
bush when he first received his calling.

So the nation finally arrives
at the foot of Mt.Sinai, and Moses remembers that promise.

So
he re-ascends the mount to that place where he had first encountered the Lord.

3 And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain,
saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of
Israel: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how
I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now
therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you
shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is
Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to
the children of Israel.”

Okay – there is a lot here
and we need to work through it carefully.

First of all – v. 4

‘You have seen what I did to
the Egyptians,

The plagues were a dramatic
demonstration of God’s superiority to the gods the Egyptians worshiped.

And
since the Egyptians were the dominant nation in that region at that time, this
meant Yahweh was the supreme deity, the all-powerful God.

He hadn’t just opened the
door to freedom, He’d blown it right off it’s hinges!

andhow I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought
you to Myself.

This idiom, of being born up
on eagle’s wings, becomes a repeated theme and image God uses to refer to how
He had carried them in the early days of their Exodus.

It
was an image that the children of Israel would have well understood as they passed through the
wilderness and passed by the hills and mountains that rise from the desert
floor.

You
see, eagles build their nests high in the rock cliffs.

They
make them of twigs, the sharp ends of which face into the nest.

But
the mother eagle puts lots of down and padding in the nest to cover the sharp
twig ends.

As
the eaglet matures and gains weight, it begins to press down on the padding,
which doesn’t provide the same protection it did when the eaglet was younger
and lighter.

Pretty
soon, that nice comfortable nest has become uncomfortable, and the eaglet will
hop out of the nest to get away.

But
it’s not really ready for flight yet because the muscles for it’s
wings aren’t conditioned.

So
it falls through the air – which is why eagles always position their nests on cliffs.

As
the eaglet falls, it flaps its wings, trying desperately to fly, but it can’t.

And
at just the right moment, the mother eagle swoops under it and catches it on its
back, right between it’s wings.

It
then bears it back up and places it into the nest, which while still
uncomfortable, is still better to the eaglet than the uncomfortable condition
of falling through the air.

And
there the eaglet stays, until as it gets a bit older, the mother removes some
of the down, exposing more and more of the twig ends.

Soon,
it’s too uncomfortable to stay in the nest, and the eaglet, will once again hop
out and free fall.

And
once again the mother will swoop down and catch up her young.

This
process will go on a few times until eventually, the eaglet’s wings are
functioning as they’re supposed to and instead of falling, it’sflying.

This is precisely the process
God has been taking the nation of Israel through.

He
took them out of their nest in Egypt.

Their
time in Egypt had begun as a comfortable stay in a land of plenty
when it was a time of drought for the rest of the region.

But
over time, the nest became uncomfortable; the sharp twigs of slavery poked them and they longed to be let out.

God
opened the door and they took their first journey outside the nest of Egypt.

Then
God bore them up by leading them with the pillar of smoke and fire.

He
bore them up through the Red
Sea and their deliverance
from the threat of the Egyptian army.

He
bore them up in the battle with the Amalekites, with
the provision of manna, andwater at Rephidim.

In
all of these trails, God was giving them another opportunity to exercise the muscles of their faith and to learn how to
soar, rather than fall.

What God did with Israel, He does with us.

It
seems to be the universal experience of Christians that their first few weeks
or months of the Christian life are awesome times of sensing the Lord’s
presence and love.

Everything
is new and fresh and cool – even the trials seem to be fun in a way!

But
then, there comes a time of severe challenge and testing, and the Lord’s
presence seems less real, less tangible.

The
mother eagle is no longer there dropping choice worms into our mouth.

We
look around and we wonder where God is, and it’s getting so uncomfortable, and
so we step out, and find ourselves free-falling through discouragement, fear,
panic!

But
it never fails, right at the last moment, right before we crash, the Lord moves
in and lifts us up, and carries us back to a place of safety.

This
happens again and again, until we learn to fly; until we learn that being a
mature Christian isn’t a life of sitting in a comfortable place where God drops
blessing into our lives.

It
means being like Him, living His life His way, soaring
above the things of this world.

As Israel was now at Sinai, they had been born up by the Lord
time and again.

But
God had a mission for them, and that was to take possession of Canaan, a land inhabited by giant adversaries who lived
behind heavily fortified walls.

God
had a land of great blessing and promise for them but it would need to be
conquered.

Israel would need to learn to fly – to fight – to be
victorious as they walked by faith in Him.

And
so, as the traveled from Egypt to Sinai, God kept pulling the down out of their nest
and facing them with the trials they had endured.

And
at each step, right before they crashed, He always came through and bore them
up by providing for them.

His
goal was to teach them, not how to fall, but how to fly, to look to Him right
at the outset of some trial and need.

God desires for each of us to
enter in to the fullness of his promise and blessing.

There
is a spiritual Canaan, a Promised land that awaits
us – it’s the spirit filled life.

But
we have an adversary who wants to keep us from entering in and taking possession of what the Lord intends for us.

The
trials we endure are part of the Lord process of maturing us, and teaching us
of His faithfulness.

They
are part of His turning us from slaves to warriors.

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice
and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above
all people; for all the earth is Mine.

God had told Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob that their descendants would be His special covenant people.

And
though this was a promise made in and by grace, by God’s unmerited, unearned
favor, He extends an invitation now to those descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob – it’s an invitation to be a people, a nation that would be the special
focus of His attention.

We need to understand what
God says here against the historical backdrop of that time.

You
see, the ancient world believed in many
gods, and every nation, every tribe and group of people had their own
deities.

Specifically,
each had their own chief god to whom
they were attached and had a special covenant with.

The
Egyptians worshiped Ra as their
supreme deity.

The
Babylonians worshiped Marduk.

Most
of the Canaanites worshiped Baal.

The
Philistines worshipped Dagon.

In
the religions of these people, the god they served placed specific demands on
them, and if the people met them, then the deity promised certain benefits.

God is using that form here
with the people of Israel.

He
has given them ample evidence of His reality, power, and love.

And
now, He extends to them the invitation to enter into a national covenant with
Him: He will be their God and they shall be His people.

The
conditions are this – they must obey Him, and if they do, then they will be His
treasure!

Then God adds this most
crucial remark that was meant to make them realize He wasn’t like the other
deities worshipped by the other nations.

He
may indeed be using a form similar to what was in place around them, but that’s
as far as the similarity goes.

He
says, “All the earth isMine.”

He
wasn’t to be confused with the idols and petty deities worshipped by others.

He
wasn’t a god limited to just one geographical region, or to just one aspect of
creation.

No!
The whole earth is His.He is Creator
and Sustainer of CREATION itself.

I love what God says here in
v. 5, how he identifies Israel – as His special treasure!

What
does God consider of value? Where does He invest His wealth?What’s His treasure?HIS PEOPLE!!!!Those who are in covenant
with Him.

Gold
and silver mean nothing to Him – they are but minerals, destined to dissolve
when the heavens and the earth are changed.

The
ONLY THING that lasts when this Creation is complete, when it has served it’s
purpose and passes away, the only thing that remains, that
lasts, is people!!!

Listen to these words of Moses 40 years later as he
looked back on the early days of the Exodus when God first forged the covenant
with the children of Israel.

Deuteronomy 32:9-12

9For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

10“He found him
in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept
him as the apple of His eye.

11As an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up, Carrying them on its wings,

12So the Lord alone led him, Andthere was no foreign god with him.

Did you catch that – the
Lord’s portion what He gets out of all this, is what? His
people!

You
& me!We are His portion!

We
are the apple, the pupil, of His eye!

How
careful are you about your eye?That’s
how tender and careful the Lord is about you!

In Ephesians 1: 16-18, Paul says this -

16 [I]do not cease to give thanks for you,
making mention of you in my prayers: 17that the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him, 18the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what
are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Did you catch that?Paul prays they might know how God treasures
them as HIS INHERITANCE!

Listen
– WE ARE WHAT GOD GETS OUT OF ALL THIS!

AND
WE ARE WHAT HE WANTS.

Deep in the heart of every
human being is the longing to be desired,
to be wanted.

It
was placed there by God, because we were made for Him.

We
find our purpose, our meaning in being pursued and found by Him.

Our
greatest potential is realized in giving ourselves to He Who wants us.

God’s
greatest glory is in us becoming Who He created us to be – the object of His
treasured affection.

6 And you shall be to Me a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you
shall speak to the children of Israel.”

As Israel obeyed the Lord, and became God’s treasure, then she
would become a nation set apart from all others to be a kingdom of priests.

A priest’s task is simple &
2-fold:

1)
The priest stands before God on behalf of people.

2)
And stands before the people on behalf of God.

Yahweh here says that Israel would become a sacred nation, whose mission would be,
not to hoard the revelation of God, but to mediate it to the other nations of
the world.

They
would bring the needs of the world to God and would bring God’s message to the
world.

That
was God’s original plan for Israel – but she badly neglected her duty, her sacred
calling, and instead of being a light to
the nations, she hoarded the revelation of God and grew proud of her status
as His choice treasure.

It
got so bad that Israel worked against her mission –
and began to treat outsides, the Gentiles, as a people to hate and distain.

Gentiles
were said to have been created by God as nothing more than fuel for the fires
of hell.

The
loathing of Jews for Gentiles became so intense that if a Jew so much as
brushed a Gentile, he was supposed to change
his clothes!

Jews
and Gentiles could not share a meal &Jews were not allowed to enter a
Gentile’s home.

When we consider God’s
original plan for Israel and how He intended them to be a missionary nation, we wonder how very different the history of the
world might have been if instead of hoarding the revelation of God, she had
been faithful to her mission of being a kingdom of priests.

And then we’re
reminded of Peter’s words in 1 Peter 2:9 & 10.

9But you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,

These
words sound amazingly a lot like what God said to Israel at Mt.Sinai!

They
are, and peter intends us to understand them that way.

. . . that you may
proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light; 10who once were not a people but are now the
people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Just as the children of Israel were a bunch of nobodies, a despised race of slaves
no one could give a rip about, so we were nobodies, with nothing whatsoever to
comment us to God.

But God, in His mercy and
grace, chose us, saved us, and made us into a kingdom of priests, a
covenant-community with a sacred mission of sharing His message with this lost
world.

How tragic it would be if we
followed in Israel’s footsteps and failed to share that message, but
instead isolated ourselves and hoarded the goodness and blessing of God.

2.7-8
• The people accept

7 So Moses came and called for the elders of the people,
and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him. 8 Then all the people answered
together and said, “All that the Lord
has spoken we will do.” So Moses brought back the words of
the people to the Lord.

Moses repeated the Lord’s
invitation to the leaders of the people to enter into this national covenant
with Him as their God and they as His people.

Their
response was positive – they
agree to the terms.

Now that the covenant has
been agreed to, God needs to give Moses the specifics
of what it means to obey Him.

Now
we get the regulations and rules that will govern the relationship of the
people with Yahweh.

3.9-15
• Getting ready for God’s revelation

9 And the Lord
said to Moses, “Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud, that the people may
hear when I speak with you, and believe you forever.”

God is going to give the law,
the specifics of the covenant to Moses, and Moses will then relate them to the
people.

But
God wants to make sure the people accept what Moses tells them as indeed from
God, and not just made up by Moses.

So
when God comes, He will appear in manifest majesty and speak to Moses in such a
way that the people will accept what Moses says as from the Lord.

How
that will be worked out we’ll see in just a moment.

So Moses told the words of
the people to the Lord. 10 Then
the Lord said to Moses, “Go to
the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their
clothes. 11 And let them be ready for the third day. For on
the third day the Lord will come
down upon Mount
Sinai in the sight of all
the people. 12 You shall set bounds for the people all around,
saying, ‘Take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the
mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to
death. 13 Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned
or shot with an arrow; whether man or beast, he shall not live.’ When
the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain.”

Okay, get the scene
here.Moses had originally gone up to
meet with the Lord and God had given him the initial invitation to the national covenant to give to the elders.

Moses
had then gone back down to those elders and shared it with them.

They
had responded and Moses had carried that word back to God.

God now tells Moses that he
must go back to the people and get them ready for a special revelation of His
glory and will.

He
will descend upon the Mount, which will become a kind of pulpit form
which He will speak.

A
boundary must be set up around the base of the mount so that no one breaks
through and tries to ascend the mount while God is speaking.

The
reason why is because the attention of the people would be drawn off what God
was speaking onto those who were going up the mount.

What
God has to say to the people is so important, there can be no distractions, so if
anyone does break through, they are to be immediately executed by the rest of
the people, either by stoning or by arrow-shot.

You know, during our services
here, we need to do our best to keep distractions to a minimum.

People
coming in late, getting up and moving around during service, cell phones,
pagers, wristwatch alarms, fidgety kids, and chit chat – all these things can
be distractions – and not one of them is necessary.

God
warned the people to recognize the sanctity of the mount of His revelation, and
if anyone violated it, the consequences were severe and immediate.

Now,
this doesn’t mean we’re going to implement a policy of stoning or shooting people when they make a distraction!

But
it does mean we all need to look at our times here as serious business!

We
are worshiping God!And we are listening
to His Word, waiting on His Spirit to speak to us and teach us His truth.

Look, God even told the
people that there would be two full days of preparation before He spoke, and they were to get ready by washing their clothes.

This
was a simple way of impressing upon the people
that this was going to be a special
event and they needed to prepare for it.

And
there is a direct correlation to what we do here.

This doesn’t mean we’re to
put on our Sunday best and dress up for church.

What
it does mean is that when we come to church, when we come into the Lord’s
presence to worship and hear His Word, we come with prepared hearts.

It
isn’t outward, but inner preparation we need to attend to.

It’s
clean hearts the Lord is looking for;
hearts made clean by the washing of the water of the word. [Ephesians 5:26]

14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and
sanctified the people, and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said
to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not come near your
wives.”

Moses went back to the people
to implement the preparation the Lord had commanded.

He
told them that in 3 days the Lord would come with a special word for them and
they needed to get ready.

They
washed and prepared, and then Moses added the command that they were to avoid
marital relations for a couple days, until the Lord had come
and spoken to them.

Now
why would he say this?Some have
concluded that this is a sign that there’s something unclean or unholy about
sex, even marital sex.

Well,
that doesn’t jive with the rest of what the Bible teaches about sex, and it
doesn’t fit with the context here either!

Is
it morally wrong to wear dirty clothes? No!

But
would you wear them when meeting a dignitary?No way!

It’s
appropriate to affect your cleanest and best appearance when meeting a
dignitary.

This
is the way we ought to understand Moses’ command that the people abstain from
marital relations for a couple days.

He wanted them to realize
that as important as the husband–wife relationship is, as intimate as it is, there is in fact a
relationship that is even more
crucial, more intimate – our
relationship with God.

And
just as abstinence would create a tension that would look for release in being
re-united with one’s spouse, Moses wanted to create a healthy spiritual tension in the people that would find
release in their union with God.

4.16-25
• The Lord appears in glory on Mt.Sinai

16 Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning,
that there were thunderings and lightnings,
and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud,
so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.

When the dawn of the third
day came, the Lord descended in glory on the mount.

There
was a thick cloud representing His presence and glory.

Flashes
of lightening crackled and thunder boomed, but above it all there was heard the
sound of a trumpet, summoning the people to the edge of the mount, that they
might hear the words which God would command them.

17 And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet
with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinaiwas completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the
whole mountain quaked greatly. 19 And when the blast of the trumpet
sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. 20 Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the
mountain, and Moses went up. 21 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they
break through to gaze at the Lord,
and many of them perish. 22 Also let the
priests who come near the Lord
consecrate themselves, lest the Lord
break out against them.” 23 But Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai; for You warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds
around the mountain and consecrate it.’ ” 24 Then the Lord said to him, “Away! Get down and
then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people
break through to come up to the Lord,
lest He break out against them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people
and spoke to them.

God called Moses up yet
again, to tell Him once more how crucial it was that the people realize the importance of not trespassing onto the mount.

Moses
told the Lord that he’d already done that and that the boundary markers had
been set.

But
God urged Moses to return and tell the people to be extra-cautious about straying onto the mount.

So Moses went and reminded
the people just how serious this issue of touching the mount was.

They
needed to be impressed with the reality of just how holy God is.

But there was another reason
why God told Moses to go back and talk to the people.

He
wanted Moses to be with the people
when the first words of the covenant
were spoken.

These
words would be spoken for all 3 million of the people to hear, not just
to Moses.

CHAPTER 20

G.At Mt.Sinai • 20-40

1.20:1-17
• The Ten Commandments are given

1 And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.

And now we get the 10
Commandments, which we’re covering in depth on Sunday mornings over the next so
many weeks.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is
in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you
shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations
of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who
love Me and keep My commandments.

7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless
who takes His name in vain.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six
days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor
your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle,
nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 Forin six days the Lord
made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

According to Jewish
tradition, the first 4 commandments were written on the first of the two stone
tablets.

The
10 Commandment can be divided into two sections:

1)
Those which relate to our duty toward God, on the first tablet.

2)
Those which relate to our duty toward man, on the second tablet.

When Jesus was asked what the
greatest commandment was, He said it was to love the Lord God with all our
heart, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as our self.

He
said on this hangs all the Law.

Loving
the Lord is the fulfillment of the first tablet’s commands while loving our
neighbor is the fulfillment of the second.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may
be long upon the land which the Lord
your God is giving you.

[We’ll look at all of these
in depth in our series onSaturdays & Sundays]

2.20:18-21
• The people’s terrified reaction

18 Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the
trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they
trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, “You
speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”

After witnessing the awesome
display of God’s power and majesty, and hearing His voice announcing the
terms of the covenant, the people can bear no more.

The
sights and sounds have overwhelmed them and they are on the verge of sensory
overload.

It’s a common desire for
people to want to see God.

We
think what a huge faith-boost it would be if we could just see Him & hear
Him speak audibly.

What
we read here should put that idea to rest!The people plead with Moses to make it stop!

Later,
when Moses asked to see God, the Lord told Him that was impossible because the revelation would kill
him!

When
the prophet Isaiah was given a glimpse of heaven, all he saw was the hem of God’s
robe and the glory was so great it wiped him out.

When
John was given the revelations he had, he too was wiped out and fells as though
dead.

Daniel
was made so physically weak by the glory he saw it took him days to recover.

The point is this – seeing God in His glory is not something this frail human
flesh can endure.

That’s
why these bodies have to be traded in for that which is immortal and spiritual.

We
are made and destined for eternal, face to face fellowship with God.

But
these things [bodies] could never endure it, not even for a second.

Here the children of Israel are coming to grips with the reality that Yahweh is
not at all like the deities worshiped by the heathen nations.He is the true
God and all others are fakes and pretenders.

20 And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God
has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not
sin.”

What a great word!

You
see, as the people had just now heard the terms of the covenant they had agreed
to, they realized they’d already broken every one of the commandments!

So
sure, judgment would come and they were fearful that the lightening would blast
forth and fry them where they stood.

But Moses calms them by
saying that they need not fear God – rather, fear sin!

God
doesn’t want the people to walk in a terrified kind of way before Him but
rather to walk with utmost care as it came to their observance of the
commandments.

All
the lightening, and thunder, and earthquakes were evidences of God’s power and that He’s not One to be trifled with.

21 So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the
thick darkness where God was.

3.20:22-26
• Building an altar

22 Then the Lord
said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen that I have talked with you from
heaven. 23 You shall not make anything to be with Me—gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for
yourselves.

This is a reiteration of the
2nd Commandment–not to make an image that represents God.

God
repeated this command because He knew how prone the people were to the making
of idols as instruments of religious devotion.

It’s
what every other nation and religion
did, but they were to break away from other religions.

They
were to realize and implement their radical difference from the ways of the
world.

It’s the nature of worship to
become incarnational; that is, to
find expression!

That
which we truly worship, will find expression in our lives.

The
problem is, if we’re not careful, we can start equating the form of our worship
with the thing we’re worshiping.

In
the ancient world, they took a log or stone and fashioned it into the shape of
a goddess.

The
idol was merely meant to be a representation of a spiritual entity, but it
wasn’t long before the image itself was thought to be the deity.

God told the people never to
make an image of Him because there would be a confusion about Him that would
take place.

By
its nature, an image would always be less than who and what He is.

An
image would distort their view of Him and so their relationship with Him.

You know, an image is the product of our imagination.

The factory of images is the imagination –
and long before we fashion an image with our hands, we’ve fashioned it in our
minds.

There’s
a danger in trying to imagine what
Jesus looked like – and this is why the Word of God never even hints at His
physical appearance.

The
HS does not want us conjuring imaginary portraits of the Lord because it would inevitably fall short of who and
what He is.

Yet still, our worship
strives for incarnation – for expression.

And
this is why Jesus said that true worship, pure worship is that which is offered
up to the Lord in spirit and in truth, that is, the communion of our spirits
with the Lord’s through the revelation of His Word.

There
is an indispensable link between the Word of God and true worship.

And
it’s one of the reasons why I think the worship we enjoy here at CC is some of
the best and sweetest worship that pleases God.

Not
because it’s excited and loud and rambunctious, but because it’s sincere, and
joyously reverent, respectful of God’s holiness and receptive to His grace.

24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall
sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and
your oxen. In every place where I record My name I
will come to you, and I will bless you. 25 And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone;
for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 26 Nor shall
you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness
may not be exposed on it.’

Note this – it’s
crucial!As God has just given the core
and heart of the law, He immediately speaks of the altar – why?

Because
where there is law, there is sin because man is fallen!

God
gave the law, not to make man
righteous, but to show him he’s not!

As
Paul says to the Galatians, the Law is a schoolmaster, a tutor, which drives us
to Christ.

So
God gives immediate instruction about the altar because where there is law,
there’s the need for sacrifice, for substitution.

The altar they are to build
is to be a plain affair.

If
made of earth, they are just to scrap some dirt together.

If
made of stone, they are not to shape the stones.

The
reason why is because God wants the attention to be n the sacrifice itself, not
on the altar it’s laid on.

The
attention is to be on the substitution the animal offered up is for them, and not on the work of some
artisan.

The
plain altar speaks of grace, not works!

And
this is why the altar wasn’t to be some lofty affair either, in which the
priest would ascend many steps and so his backside exposed to those below.

All
attention was to be where? On the offering, the sacrifice.

This points to the Final Sacrifice all previous sacrifices anticipated – the sacrifice Jesus would
offer up on the plain wooden Roman cross on an earthen hill outside the walls
of Jerusalem.

CONCLUSION

Now that Israel has come to Mt.Sinai, they will spend the next year there.

All
throughout that year they would be given the Law of God and would see it put
into effect in the governing of their nation and lives.

The word Sinai means “thorny.”The area is also called Horeb which means “desolate.”

Interesting
that God would bring them to Mt. Thorny
in Desolation to give them the Law.

But
that is precisely the lesson we’re to learn from this, and why, hard on the
heels of giving the heart of the law, God gives the command for the altar.

The Law is holy, right and
good.

But
because we’re not, because we’re fallen, the law provokes the sin within us to
rise up & rebel.

Then
our conscience is pricked, poked by the thorns of the law, and we’re stricken with guilt.

The
longer we live with the Law, the more desolate
we become, realizing there’s no way, in our own strength, we
can commend ourselves to God.

Thank God He’s erected an
altar at the foot of Mt.Thorny and at the edge of the Wilderness of Desolation.

For
on that altar a sacrifice is made which is the substitution for our guilt and
which covers our failure and shame.

Let’s take careful note here
that before God had them build the altar, he gave the Law.

You
see, what need is there of sacrifice if there is no consciousness of sin?

The
only one’s who need a Savior are those who realize they are lost!

We do people a major
disservice today by failing to speak of sin, and by downplaying the Law of God.

All
too often, the gospel is presented as little more than an offer to join a
church and put a bumper sticker on your car, or wear a T-shirt with a clever
religious slogan on it.

The
true message of Christ is that He is our substitute, that
He was offered up in our place and that by faith in Him the righteous
requirements of the law are met and satisfied.

Those seeker-sensitive
churches who refuse to mention the reality of sin for fear it might turn some
people off, are in effect saying what Jesus did on the cross wasn’t really all
that important.

One
has to ask – are we interested in making genuine
born-again converts or just church
members?

Are
we preparing people for heaven – or
just giving them a false sense of security as they make their way into hell?